This seminar is designed to give students an appreciation of the
role of law in Chinese society, in the past, and today. We will
begin the seminar with an examination of law in traditional Chinese
society, which constituted perhaps the world's most influential
alternative to the Western legal tradition. We then look briefly
at past efforts to "modernize" Chinese law, during the Republican
period before 1949, and during the influence of Soviet law after
1949. The remainder of the semester will be spent on China's
current efforts to establish a legal system, focusing on topics such as
constitutional law and human rights, intellectual property law,
environmental law, or corporate law. The exact topics covered
will depend upon students' interests. Students will write papers,
and will present those papers to the class during the last few
sessions. Grading will be on the basis of the papers and the
presentations.